Watch Civilization: Beyond Earth's Rising Tide Expansion in ActionSee water cities, new alien types, and much more.GameSpotby Chris Pereira on June 30, 2015

2K has released a new video showcasing the first expansion pack for Civilization: Beyond Earth, Rising Tide, ahead of its release later this year.

Rising Tide was announced in May, but 2K and developer and Firaxis didn't shown any gameplay footage at the time. That changed at E3, where you may have seen the expansion as part of a GameSpot stage demo during the event. The new video offers a look at the behind-closed-doors gameplay demo that was being shown at E3.

The 6-minute video highlights several of Rising Tide's major changes--most notably, the new things you can do on water tiles, like found cities. Firaxis told GameSpot that it "really changed some of the very fundamental ways in which you build cities, capture territory, develop, and grow, so that if you play at sea, you have a whole different strategic landscape." It's hard to glean a whole lot from a brief video, but you can get a feel for how the new water-based action works.

Also featured in the video are a new civilization, the improved diplomatic system, and artifacts. These are a new sort of item you can discover and then choose to use immediately for a short-term gain, or save in the hopes of a larger bonus further in the future.

There are other new features not on display here, like water cities that can move. These are briefly mentioned in a new blog on the official Civilization site, but we'll have to wait to learn much more about those.